Bellator nervously welcomes Joe Warren back

The last time we saw Joe Warren in the cage he took a brutal beating at the hands of Pat Curran. It was the kind of horrific head trauma that psychically wakes Gary Goodridge up in the middle of the night a la the Shining, and afterwards many people wondered if maybe Joe should hang up the gloves. You know, while he still had the hand / eye coordination to do so. But according to Bellator prez Bjorn Rebney…

“He wants to fight again,” Rebney said. “Thankfully, he took enough time off. Given his style, there’s no question about Joe Warren’s heart. He wants to get back on track and see where he can take it.”

Rebney said Warren appears to have gone through some reality checks and balances before making his decision to come back. But his enthusiasm to get back in the cage is winning out.

“He’s cognizant of the fact he’s older and there’s not much of a window left,” Rebney said. “But he’s also fairly realistic. He goes, ‘I’m not getting any younger. That’s not the way I want to go out. I’d like to give it one more run at ’35. My losses were one crazy shot, and I fought Pat Curran, arguably the best featherweight in the world. It’s not my right weight, but I was the champ and I had to defend. Can I have one more shot at ’35?’

“With a guy with that kind of heart, I can’t at this point say to him, ‘No, I’m not going to give you another shot.’ He’s been awesome, and he’s a warrior, so you give him another shot and we’ll see. Hopefully he can turn it around and the outcome isn’t what it’s been the last couple.”

Let’s hope so. I don’t wanna be all Jake Rossen and demand the guy retire or anything, but Warren’s two last losses were really bad. Like they make me reconsider the ethical ramifications of supporting MMA bad.

It wasn’t just the losses, it was the wins too. He took a beating in almost all of them and either won through a hail mary shot (remember Joe Soto? No? Oh, okay.) or a Hypnotoad robbery. Even the mighty Leonard Garcia couldn’t have won the fight Warren fought against Patricio Freire, taking a serious beating for 5 minutes and literally being saved by the bell from a RNC (the locked-in, nowhere-to-go kind of RNC).

Reverend Clint

ive seriously never watched a joe warren fight

Blackula Jonez

Symbul speaks the truth, Warren got by on his toughness for a while, but now that he has been finished in savage fashion more than once it will get easier to do so.

Same for his boy Scotty J, walking through strikes and winning via homer simpson strat in mma is a slow motion way to get drain bamage.

glassjawsh

who does jake rossen write for now? he was the only reason I went to sherdog for at least a year

Fightlinker

i dunno. man, rip jake rossen. jeez that joke might not even make sense to anyone any more. i guess sherdog and bloody elbow are totally different these days. Jordan Breen is oldschool

randlemansvertical

The only reason to watch a Joe Warren fight is to see him get the fuck beaten out of him. His strategy seems to be to let his opponent beat the shit out of him to the point they gas, then he lays on them for a round or two and wins. The Joe Soto fight is the only fight I can think of him taking a beating in that he won convincingly. If he wants to get brutally ktfo again, I’m all for it. He’s a douche.

agentsmith

I was shocked that his standard “take a shit-kicking in the 1st round” strategy didn’t pan out in the long run. Shocked, I say!